Ketones & Brain Health | Dr. Mary Newport x Dave Asprey

Can you walk me through your understanding of ketones and, and being on this high fat diet or using mcts or, or ketone supplements, what does it do to carbon dioxide and acid alkaline basis? Kind of walk me through the metabolism.

Yeah, PH balance is very complicated. And that, that was one thing. I was constantly getting blood gases on newborns, mostly with who had respiratory problems. And there's really two types of acidosis. One's respiratory acidosis, and that's where the carbon dioxide levels are too high. They'll develop respiratory acidosis. And then you can correct that by hyperventilating the patient to get the carbon dioxide levels down. But the body also has buffers, so your buffers will come out in full force to try to correct that problem. And, but you can have it the other way around. In ketoacidosis, you have a metabolic acidosis, not a respiratory acidosis. And it basically is driving your ph down. And when it happens, I mean, all the enzymes in our body require a very specific pH, a very narrow range of pHs to operate appropriately. And the reason why acidosis can be harmful is because it will, you know, basically get out of the range that these enzymes function normally in. And I mean, there are so many enzymes, I mean, hundreds and hundreds of different enzymes that could be affected with acidosis, and it can only be maintained for so long, you know, so diabetic ketoacidosis is a perfect example of where ketosis gets out of control. But this happens in people who usually have type 1 diabetes. It can happen in type 2 diabetes when the pancreas just isn't functioning or putting out insulin anymore, but the glucose level gets extremely high. There basically effectively no insulin on board. And insulin is required to really control blood glucose. And then when, if this isn't corrected pretty quickly, if the person doesn't get insulin, the ketones will start pouring out of the fat. None of this, you know, the organs aren't getting glucose. You know, the brain is, I mean, you know, because there isn't insulin to get it into these cells and all, you know, basically all of the organs. And so fat starts breaking down to try to provide a fuel, fatty acids and ketones. But it gets out of control, you know, because it's not been corrected. And ketones at extremely high levels do become acidotic and can really lower the ph and it can kill somebody if it's not corrected. I mean, this used to happen. Yeah, before insulin was available. That was 1921 that it came out. You know, before that, you know, people would die, you know, with type 1 diabetes because of this diabetic ketoacidosis.

It's amazing. I mean, you're an early voice in the keto movement. So am I. And the number of doctors who would look me right in the face and say, you can't have ketosis ketoacidosis. You're going to die. And I'm like, laughing. I'm like, dude, I. I pee on a ketone stick to measure my ketones, and it's pink. That means I am in ketosis and I'm talking to you.

Right.

There is abundant evidence this is not true. Not to mention the hundreds of thousands of people are losing weight on this weird butter coffee thing.

Yeah.

And so there's like an almost religious fear of it. But it. It seems like in ketosis, especially if you're eating a lot of protein, you do raise tissue. Not necessarily. Not necessarily blood, but you raise tissue acidity. And in my longevity book, there's this amazing thing that extends lifespan by about 15% in mammals. In some studies, it's called baking soda.

Yeah.

A quarter teaspoon or half a teaspoon of baking soda, and it gives you a carbonate buffer so your body can better manage this.

Yeah.

It seems like a cheap longevity hack for people in ketosis. What do you think of that?

Yeah, I agree with that. It's, in fact, you know, some of the ketone exogenous ketone products have free beta hydroxybutyrate, and. Which is an acid. And so they'll. They'll use that as a buffer or some other similar, you know, buffer to help, you know, keep the physical in line, you know, basically, so to speak. And it's possible to get too much of a ketone ester, for example, you could take very high doses, stack them too close together, and that will put you in ketoacidosis. But it's not diabetic ketoacidosis. It's really a temporary situation. And there. There is a study, it was done with athletes, Kieran Clark, and they. They reported that the ph and the bicarbonate levels, that's another measure of, you know, acid base, that they were normal in the study. But in actuality, you know, the ph did drop when they got a really high dose. It was 25 grams of. Well, for somebody that was 150 pounds, it would equal about 25 grams of a ketone ester. And I'm a big fan of the ketone esters. You just gotta be careful. Um, and. But the ph did drop. It did drop, and it was below what critical care specialists would be. Would consider normal. It was below that level, and the bicarbonate level dropped very substantially. And it was. It was below the normal level, you know, what we know as the normal range. And two hours later, it still hadn't corrected, you know, yet.

It seems a little sketchy to me. And for listeners, if. If you're kind of new to this world, raising ketones is metabolically beneficial, and doing it sometimes, but not all the time seems to be the right way to do it.

That.

That was the whole basis of the. The bulletproof diet book. It's almost at a million copies, I think, globally. And here's. Here's the way to think of. Of ketones. You can get them for free by not eating for several days. But it's hard, and it feels like. It feels crappy. You can get them much more quickly by not eating and having, well, let's just say Danger Coffee. My new brand of coffee with butter and MCT oil in it. Yeah, Danger Coffee. Because who knows what you might do? So we have this idea, okay, don't eat or eat fat and C8MCTS only. And you will be in ketosis, which has all kinds of metabolic benefits, brain benefits. You feel good, you're not hungry, you lose weight. Like, it feels kind of magical. But then you could go beyond that, and you could say, all right, I'm gonna take ketone salts. And there are risks with salts. I'm not as big of a fan. One of the preeminent researchers for 40 years of. Of ketosis and mitochondria. Dr. Veach, in his last interview before he passed away, it was on the show. Yeah, A total hero for metabolic nerds. And he just says, sure, ketone salts are harmful for mitochondria. And I think he's right. So I don't use them, and I've just never felt right on them. And then we have ketone esters, and I. I synthesized some back in, like, 2014. They're very expensive, they taste bad, but they uncontrollably raise ketones. And the newest thing on the market is called a ketone dial. Ketone IQ makes it.

Yeah.

And that will raise ketones substantially, but it's rate limited by the body, so there's no risk of acidosis. So for me, when someone says, dave, how do I go in ketosis? I'm like, well, for free. Don't eat for cheap. Have some C8MCT and butter and your coffee. If you want to spend more and get more results because you're an athlete or you're. You have Alzheimer's or you're just really focused on this. I just say skip straight to the ketone dial. And ketone IQ is. Is the one that I've. I've taken. I actually take it when I travel. Just did an interview with those guys.

Yeah, it's one of the components of the ketone ester that Dr. Vita developed.